Sunday, August 07, 2005:

Horace X

Horace X
Horace X -- Strategy
So you're hanging out at the park when an Irish Setter comes up and sniffs your shins and your shoes. He licks your hand when you go to pet it, lets himself get scratched behind the ears, then runs off and comes back with a ball that he drops at your feet. He looks up at you, smiling, panting, eyebrows raised, then nuzzles the ball forward a bit. You pick it up and give it a good toss and he sprints after it: over a slight rise and across the park, and then he's back in a flash, scrambling to a stop just in front of you. He drops the ball at your feet and looks up, panting, smiling, eyebrows raised. He waits a beat and then nuzzles the ball forward.

A couple dozen tosses later you're wondering whether the dog will get tired before you do.

The Irish Setter is Horace X's music. The ball is the CD. You keep giving it a spin. You've been listening to it all day; you are, finally, beginning to tire of it; you think that maybe you should stop but the fun is just too contagious.

Horace X are a UK band mixing reggae, toasting, funky bumping slapping basslines, saxophones, fiddles (lovely, lovely fiddles), violas, some well-placed dub touches, and more kinetic energy than explodes out of a cannon. And, as I've said, they're a hell of a lot of fun.

"Strategy" is the title track from Horace X's recent EP; it's one of the slower songs on the disc. Other slap-happy bits of wonderfulness on it are "Puppet Show," "A Tune For Valerie," and "First Love" (which is available on the site for download).

Drew Miller at Omnium Records was kind enough to send me the CD twice--not because I wanted one for my best friend, though I do, but because I'd just returned from a longish trip and sent him the wrong address. I never did get the first one he sent, though I imagine someone at the dead letter office is very happy indeed.

Omnium Records, Horace X's label.
Strategy page at Omnium Records, with the hyperkinetic first track up for download.
Reviews and ordering

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